Capital juror questionnaires in death‐penalty cases: A study of attitudes, denials, and deceptions

Abstract

The Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury” should guarantee fundamental fairness that in capital cases may literally be a matter of life and death. For ecological validity, the current study focuses on capital jury questionnaires (CJQs) employed in actual death‐penalty cases. Study I examined 248 undergraduates and their responses to death‐penalty relevant questions. As an MTurk investigation, Study II consisted of 259 community members potentially eligible for capital trial jury trials. Misrepresentations were operationalized as either denials (concealing their true views) or outright deceptions (dissembling the opposite viewpoint). Both studies found that CJQ items were very susceptible to both types of misrepresentation, irrespective of support‐life or support‐death views. Nearly 30% of undergraduates openly acknowledged that they would misrepresent close to half their CJQ responses. Overall, community members were much more willing to engage in denials and outright deceptions. The discussion focuses on how CJQs could be improved to promote candor about death‐penalty views.

Problems of checking personal data of jury members: Russian and foreign experience

“…The studies of scientific literature show that the problem of obtaining personal data of jury members and candidates is relevant for Russia and for the countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal system. The importance of identifying individual subjective characteristics of jury member candidates to ensure the right for fair proceeding is shared by most scientists and highlighted in some focused researches [2][3][4].…”